S. Watson - Before I Go to Sleep - A Novel

In the bottom drawer is a towel, and beneath it a box. I grip it, preparing to lift it out. I feel stupid, convinced it will be either locked or empty.

It is neither. In it I find my novel. Not the copy Dr Nash had given to me — there was no coffee ring on the front and the pages of this look new. It must be one Ben has been keeping all along. Waiting for the day when I know enough to own it again. I wonder where my copy is, the one that Dr Nash gave to me.

I take the novel out and underneath it is a single photograph. Me and Ben, smiling at the camera, though we both look sad. It looks recent, my face is the one I recognize from the mirror and Ben looks as he did when he left this morning. There is a house in the background, a gravel driveway, pots of bright-red geraniums. On the back someone has written Waring House . It must have been taken on the day he collected me, to bring me back here.

That’s it, though. There are no other photographs. None of Adam. Not even the ones I have found here before and described in my journal.

There is an explanation, I tell myself. There has to be. I look through the papers that are piled on the desk: magazines, catalogues advertising computer software, a school timetable with some sessions highlighted in yellow. There is a sealed envelope — which, on an impulse, I take — but there are no photographs of Adam.

I go downstairs and make myself a drink. Boiling water, a teabag. Don’t let it stew too long, and don’t compress the bag with the back of the spoon or you’ll squeeze out too much tannic acid and the tea will be bitter. Why do I remember this yet I don’t remember giving birth? A phone rings, somewhere in the living room. I retrieve it — not the one that flips open, but the one that my husband gave to me — from my bag and answer it. Ben.

‘Christine? Are you OK? Are you at home?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Have you been out today?’ he says. His voice sounds familiar, yet somehow cold. I think back to the last time we spoke. I don’t remember him mentioning that I had an appointment with Dr Nash. Perhaps he really doesn’t know, I think. Or perhaps he is testing me, wondering whether I will tell him. I think of the note written next to the appointment. Don’t tell Ben . I must have written that before I knew I could trust him.

I want to trust him now. No more lies.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’ve been to see a doctor.’ He doesn’t speak. ‘Ben?’ I say.

‘Sorry, yes,’ he says. ‘I heard.’ I register his lack of surprise. So he had known then, known that I was seeing Dr Nash. ‘I’m in traffic,’ he says. ‘It’s a bit tricky. Listen, I just wanted to make sure you’ve remembered to pack? We’re going away …’

‘Of course,’ I say, and then I add, ‘I’m looking forward to it!’ and I realize I am. It will do us good, I think, to get away. It can be another beginning for us.

‘I’ll be home soon,’ he says. ‘Can you try to have our bags packed? I’ll help when I get in, but it’d be better if we can set off early.’

‘I’ll try,’ I say.

‘There’re two bags in the spare bedroom. In the wardrobe. Use those.’

‘OK.’

‘I love you,’ he says, and then, after a moment too long, a moment in which he has already ended the call, I tell him that I love him too.

I go to the bathroom. I am a woman, I tell myself. An adult. I have a husband. One I love. I think back to what I have read. Of the sex. Of him fucking me. I had not written that I enjoyed it.

Can I enjoy sex? I realize I don’t even know that. I flush the toilet and step out of my trousers, my tights, my knickers. I sit on the edge of the bath. How alien my body is. How unknown to me. How can I be happy giving it to someone else, when I don’t recognize it myself?

I lock the bathroom door, then part my legs. Slightly at first, then more. I lift my blouse and look down. I see the stretch marks I saw the day I remembered Adam, the wiry shock of my pubic hair. I wonder if I ever shave it, whether I choose not to based on my preference or my husband’s. Perhaps those things don’t matter any more. Not now.

I cup my hand and place it over my pubic mound. My fingers rest on my labia, parting them slightly. I brush the tip of what must be my clitoris and press, moving my fingers gently as I do, already feeling a faint tingle. The promise of sensation, rather than sensation itself.

I wonder what will happen, later.

The bags are in the spare room, where he said they would be. Both are compact, sturdy, one a little larger than the other. I take them through, into the bedroom in which I woke this morning, and put them on the bed. I open the top drawer and see my underwear, next to his.

I select clothes for us both, socks for him, tights for me. I remember reading of the night we had sex and realize I must have stockings and suspenders somewhere. I decide it would be nice to find them now, to take them with me. It might be good for both of us.

I move to the wardrobe. I choose a dress, a skirt. Some trousers, a pair of jeans. I notice the shoebox on the floor — the one that must have hidden my journal — now empty. I wonder what kind of couple we are, when we go on holiday. Whether we spend our evenings in restaurants, or sitting in cosy pubs, relaxing in the rosy heat of a real fire. I wonder whether we walk, exploring the town and its surroundings, or drive to carefully selected venues. These are the things I don’t know, yet. These are the things I have the rest of my life to find out. To enjoy.

I select some clothes for both of us, almost randomly, and fold them, placing them in the cases. As I do I feel a jolt, a surge of energy, and I close my eyes. I see a vision, bright, but shimmering. It is unclear at first, as if hovering, out of both reach and focus, and I try to open my mind, to let it come.

I see myself standing in front of a bag; a soft suitcase in worn leather. I am excited. I feel young again, like a child about to go on holiday, or a teenager preparing for a date, wondering how it will go, whether he’ll ask me back to his house, whether we’ll fuck. I feel that newness, that anticipation, can taste it. I roll it on my tongue, savouring it, because I know it will not last. I open my drawers in turn, selecting blouses, stockings, underwear. Thrilling. Sexy. Underwear that is worn only with the anticipation of its removal. I put in a pair of heels in addition to the flat shoes I am wearing, take them out, put them in again. I don’t like them, but this night is about fantasy, about dressing up, about being other than what we are. Only then do I move on to the functional things. I take a quilted wash-bag in bright red leather and add perfume, shower gel, toothpaste. I want to look beautiful tonight, for the man I love, for the man I have been so close to losing. I add bath salts. Orange blossom. I realize I am remembering the night I packed to go to Brighton.

The memory evaporates. My eyes open. I could not have known, back then, that I was packing for the man who would take everything from me.

I carry on packing for the man I still have.

I hear a car pull up outside. The engine dies. A door opens, and then shuts. A key in the lock. Ben. He is here.

I feel nervous. Scared. I am not the same person he left this morning; I have learned my own story. I have discovered myself. What will he think, when he sees me? What will he say?

I must ask him if he knows about my journal. If he has read it. What he thinks.

He calls out as he closes the door behind him. ‘Christine? Chris? I’m home.’ His voice doesn’t sing, though; he sounds exhausted. I call back, and tell him I am in the bedroom.